Econometric evaluations of public-sponsored training programmes generally find littleevidence of an impact of such policies on transition rates out of unemployment. We performthe first evaluation of training effects for the unemployed adults in France, exploiting a uniquelongitudinal dataset...

Die Arbeitsmarktreformen der letzten Jahre haben die strukturellen Anpassungsproblemedes deutschen Beschäftigungsmodells zum Teil gelindert - allerdings sind noch längst nichtalle Schwierigkeiten überwunden...

Differences in regional unemployment in post-communist economies are large andpersistent. We show that inherited variation in human-capital endowment across the regionsof four such economies explains the bulk of regional unemployment variation there and weexplore potential explanations for this...

Although an inverse relationship between sickness absence and unemployment has beendocumented in a number of studies using either quarterly or annual data from differentcountries with varying institutional frameworks, it is not yet clear whether this empiricalregularity is due to changes in the...

We evaluate a randomized experiment of a statistical support system developed to assistcaseworkers in Swiss employment offices in choosing appropriate active labour marketprogrammes for their unemployed clients. This statistical support system predicted the labourmarket outcome for each...

This paper provides a model of social hysteresis whereby long, deep recessions demotivate workers and thereby lead them to change their work ethic. In switching from a pro-work to an anti-work identity, their incentives to seek and retain work fall and consequently their employment chances fall....

In response to the Great Recession and sustained labor market downturn, the availability of unemployment insurance (UI) benefits was extended to historical highs in the United States. We exploit variation in the timing and size of UI benefit extensions across states to estimate the overall...

The unemployment rate in France is roughly 6 percentage points higher for African immigrants than for natives. In the US the unemployment rate is approximately 9 percentage points higher for blacks than for whites. Commute time data indicates that minorities face longer commute times to work,...

We use longitudinal individual wage, hours, and employment data to investigate the effect of the February 1, 1982 mandatory reduction of weekly working hours in France. Just after François Mitterrand?s election in May 1981, the government decided to increase the minimum wage by 5%. Then, as...

In the mid-1980s, many European countries introduced fixed-term contracts. Since then their labor markets have become more dynamic. This paper studies the possible implications of such reforms for the duration distribution of unemployment. I estimate a parametric duration model using...